He ran straight for the house with the bluebird cutout nailed to the door. When he reached it, he kept going around to the rear window. He stopped there and tapped on the glass. There was no response.

He knocked again, this time a little harder. It occurred to him that she didn’t sleep in the little room with the mattress. That was just a room for supplies and things, part pantry and part closet. She and her husband had a bedroom. He walked around the building and knocked on another window with curtains blocking the view. Then he went to another and did the same. He made it around the building to the back window she had opened for him other nights. He rapped harder on the glass, and a moment later he heard small, light feet moving toward him.

The window swung inward as before, and he saw her. She was wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt as pajamas tonight. She took a deep breath as she saw him and jumped back.

“Wait, it’s me,” he said in a breathy whisper. “It’s Ed.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “You’re covered with blood. Why are you covered with blood?”

“It was Lonny. He came after me in the middle of the night, and I had to kill him.”

“And you came to my house like this? At first light people can follow your bloody footsteps straight to my back window.”

“Look, I really need your help. We have to get rid of the body, clean up the mess, maybe pour water on the footprints—”

“Wait here. I’ll be right out.” She disappeared from the window into the darkness of the interior. After a surprisingly short time she returned. While he watched, she threw her head back and let out a loud, piercing scream.

She lifted her right arm and he saw the .45 pistol. She fired, and Edison Leonard felt the hot, terrible pain of the bullet in his lower torso, and it left him on his back in the fragrant grass.

She said, “This can’t be two men fighting over me, hon. It’s got to be one escaped convict killed the other and went berserk.” She took the pistol in both hands and fired the second round through his head. Then she threw her head back and screamed again.

37

In daylight, as Leah drove, she checked her phone for emails. She scrolled through some lines that were the garbage that every electronic device seemed to pick up automatically, and then saw the identifier ASprague@WeldonvillePD and the subject “Forward from FBI.”